What's Bred in the Bone

by Grant Allen

So the fevered white man rose at last one morning on his shrunken limbs, and staggered, as best he might, from his protector’s hut in a wild impulse of resolution, on his mad journey seaward. When the Namaqua saw nothing on earth would induce him to remain, he shouldered his arms and went out beside him, fully equipped for fight with matchlock and assegai. Not that the savage made any undue pretence to a purely personal devotion to the belated white man. On the contrary, he signified to Granville with many ingenious signs that he was afraid of losing the great reward he had been promised, if once he let the invalid get out of his sight unattended.

Granville smiled once more that bitter smile of new-born cynicism. Well, let the fellow follow him if he liked! He would reward him himself if ever they reached the coast in safety. And in any case, it was better to go attended by a native. An interpreter who can communicate in their own tongue with the people through whose territory you are going to pass is always, useful in a savage country.

How Granville got over that terrible journey seaward he could never tell. He crawled on and on, supported by the faithful Namaqua with unfailing good-humour, over that endless veldt, for three long days of wretched footsore marching. And for three long nights he slept, or lay awake, under the clear desert stars, on the open ground of barren Namaqua land. It was a terrible time. Worn and weary with the fever, Granville was wholly unfit for any kind of travelling. Nothing but the iron constitution of the Kelmscotts could ever have stood so severe an ordeal. But the son of six generations of soldiers, who had commanded in the fever-stricken flats of Walcheren, or followed Wellesley through the jungles of tropical India, or forced their way with Napier into the depths of Abyssinia, was not to be daunted even by the nameless horrors of that South African desert. Granville still endured, for three days and nights, and was ready to march, or crawl on, once more, upon the fourth morning.

Here, however, his Namaqua, guide, with every appearance of terror, made strong warnings of danger. The country beyond, he signified by strange gestures, lay in the hands of a hostile tribe, hereditarily at war with his fellow-clansmen. He didn’t even know whether the other white man, with the diamonds round his waist, had got safely through, or whether the hostile tribe beyond the frontier had assegaied him and “eaten him up,” as the picturesque native phrase goes. It was difficult enough for even a strong warrior to force his way through that district with a good company of followers; impossible for a single weak invalid like Granville, attended only by one poor, ill-armed Namaqua.

So the savage seemed to say in his ingenious pantomime. If they went on, they’d be killed and eaten up resistlessly. If they stopped they might pull through. They must wait and camp there. For what they were to wait, Granville hadn’t the faintest conception. But the Namaqua insisted upon it, and Granville was helpless as a child in his hands. The man was alarmed, apparently, for his promised reward. If Granville insisted, he showed in very frank dumb show, why—a thrust with the assegai explained the rest most persuasively. Granville still had his revolver, to be sure, and a few rounds of ball cartridge. But he was too weak to show fight; the savage overmastered him.

They were seated on a stony ridge or sharp hog’s back, overlooking the valley of a dry summer stream. The watershed on which they sat separated, with its chine of rugged rocks, the territory of the two rival tribes. But the Namaqua was evidently very little afraid that the enemy might transgress the boundaries of his fellow-tribesmen. He dared not himself go beyond the jagged crest of the ridge; but he seemed to think it pretty certain the people of the other tribe wouldn’t, for their part, in turn come across to molest him. He sat down there doggedly, as if expecting something or other to turn up in the course of time; and more than once he made signs to Granville which the Englishman interpreted to mean that after so many days and nights from some previous event unspecified, somebody would arrive on the track from the coast at the point of junction between the hostile races.

Granville was gazing at the Namaqua in the vain attempt to interpret these signs more fully to himself, when, all of a sudden, an unexpected noise in the valley below attracted his attention. He pricked up his ears, Impossible! Incredible! It couldn’t be—yes, it was—the sharp hiss of firearms!

At the very same moment the Namaqua leapt to his feet in sudden alarm, and, shading his eyes with his dusky hand, gazed intently in front of him. For a minute or so he stood still, with brows knit and neck craning. Then he called out something in an excited tone two or three times over in his own tongue to Granville. The Englishman stared in the same direction, but could make out nothing definite just at first, in the full glare of the sunlight. But the Namaqua, with a cry of joy, held up his two fingers as before, to symbolize the two white men, and pointed with one of them to his guest, while with the other he indicated some object in the valley, nodding many times over. Granville seized his meaning at once. Could it be true, what he said in this strange mute language? Could relief be at hand? Could the firing beneath show that Guy was returning?

As he looked and strained his eyes, peering down upon the red plain, under the shadow of his open palm, the objects by the water-course grew gradually clearer. Granville could make out now that a party of natives, armed with spears and matchlocks, was attacking some little encampment on the bank of the dry torrent. The small force in the encampment was returning the fire with great vigour and spirit, though apparently over-powered by the superior numbers of their swarming assailants. Even as Granville looked, their case grew more desperate. A whole horde of black men seemed to be making an onset on some small white object, most jealously guarded, round which the defenders of the camp rallied with infinite energy. At the head of the little band of strangers, a European in a pith helmet was directing the fire, and fighting hard himself for the precious white object. The rest were blacks, he thought, in half-civilized costume. Granville’s heart gave a bound as the leader sprang forth upon one approaching savage. His action, as he leapt, stamped the man at once. There was Kelmscott in the leap. Granville knew in a second it was indeed Guy Waring.

The Namaqua recognised him too, and pointed enthusiastically forward. Granville saw what he meant. To the front! To the front! If there was fighting to be done, let them help their friends. Let them go forward and claim the great reward offered.